Have you ever led an agonizingly flat, lifeless prayer meeting?
As I’ve led prayer gatherings during the past 20 years, each gathering had committed and passionate intercessors with the best of intentions, but it became apparent over time that certain pray-ers were getting tired and losing vision.
The intercessor tribe is small; we need to understand this loss of vision. The answer came on a prayer journey in another nation. Our crew met up with a team that starts underground houses of prayer in the Middle East. Not just any prayer squad—the Green Berets of prayer teams. (They are required to pray a couple hours each day!) God is using them to impact the face of the Middle East in prayer.
When their team leader invited us to join their weekly Wednesday night meeting, we were ecstatic. I welcomed the chance to learn how to keep the vision fresh for intercessors over the long haul.
Framing the Vision
Their team leader started the prayer time with a vision statement, something like this: “Tonight we have an incredible opportunity. We get to partner with God for this region of the world. What possibilities are before us! You see, intercession is a very important occupation in the Kingdom of God because it is the job Jesus selected when He ascended into heaven.
Hebrews 7:25 makes that clear: “He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”
“Jesus could have taken any mission, but He chose intercession. So it must be important. Tonight, who knows what God will do because we are partnering with Him in prayer!”
The leader closed with another strategic prayer vision statement from Luke 3:21–22: “When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.” The leader went on to say, “When we enter into prayer like we have tonight, heaven still opens and great works are accomplished.”
Vision communicated!
I know this sounds simple. However, framing a powerful vision first has profoundly motivated our intercessors to persist in their prayers over the years.
Scriptural Vision Statements
Armed with this basic principle, I started reading the Bible through, looking for additional prayer vision statements. I found hundreds of them and marked each verse with the letters PV for prayer vision.
Here are a few vision statements you might use in your groups:
- In Acts 4:31, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (emphasis added). Tell your group, “Tonight we are gathered to agree in prayer. We are looking for God to shake the walls of heaven and this place through authentic and passionate intercession.”
- Revelation 5 describes the Lamb, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. “Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people” (emphasis added). I believe the living creatures and 24 elders could have held up anything before the Lord.
They could have offered the words of a great preacher or the breathtaking beauty of a cathedral, but they chose instead to hold up the prayers of God’s people. Urge your intercessors to recognize how this passage magnifies the value of our prayers to God. - In Acts 16:25–26, Paul and Silas are in jail when they begin to sing and pray: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose” (emphasis added). Encourage your group with a vision like this: “Tonight we believe that God will topple the barriers and loose us from the chains that are binding us—all by His power.”
Using prayer vision statements may not infuse life into every prayer gathering. But I’ve found that when leaders cast this kind of biblical perspective, our prayer times can change from agonizing to inspiring.
PAUL COVERT is a prayer pastor, regular conference speaker, host of The Threshold Intensive Prayer Conference, and consultant. He has written two books, Threshold: Transformational Prayer, Transformational Prayer Leadership and 52 Creative Ways to Pray.
